Uh... when hundreds of thousands of people stop lining up at 3AM around the world to buy their products? :dunno:
To the OP, I don't have an iPad (1 or 2), but I'm buying my girlfriend one for her birthday. I was going to get her the basic WiFi model. But at the mall where the Apple store is located, they have a Fredrick's of Hollywood store... so I'm thinking it'll be in my best interest to splurge on her a little bit.
She works with kids who have somewhat severe learning and behavioral problems. At her school they have 1st gen iPads. Apparently those types of kids are better able to deal with learning because of the interactive nature of the tablets vs. laptops or desktops. According to my girl, the kids develop a sense that they're communicating
with the device (instead of just using it) because it reacts to their touch... as opposed to using a mouse to point and click. Her sister has a 1st gen iPad, and from what I understand she dowloaded a TurboTax app this year. I have no idea how or if it works. She uses hers probably more than she does her laptop these days. But I use my iPod Touch (same basic OS as the iPad) to do stock trades, light options analysis, online banking, home, land and timber pricing, to review CAD/CAM files, light reading of news stories, timing & scoring for F1 races, music searches with SoundHound, etc. I assume the the iPad performs similar functions, just in a larger form factor. But since I'm still somewhat anti-smart phone (refuse to give up my ancient Motorola flip phone for an iPhone or anything else until it finally dies), I got the iTouch so I could FaceTime chat with my girl, who is an iPhone addict.
Also, when people talk about these various devices, I think they have to remember that it's not so much the device as the apps and how well they work. I like Apple products - I'm always impressed by the engineering and build quality (something I pay a lot of attention to because of what I do). But I'd look at any of the others too... if I felt they would serve my needs. Which leads to another point: I feel like a lot of people buy various gadgets and don't know what they want them for.
"What will it do?" I don't know... what do you want/need it to do? I bought the iPod Touch as an mp3 player, as a quick/handy camera and as a way to get Miss Thing off my ass about her FaceTime obsession. I think I've used the camera two or three times, but it has taken over as the main source of music in my cars now. And I've found that for simple/quick browsing or just checking a quote, I'll grab the iTouch before I'll even look at my computers. These things can't do everything that a full computer can do. But they'll do most of the lighter tasks. And, at least for me, that's the majority of what I do at the computer.
As for the PlayBook, if/when RIM makes it so you don't need to have a CrackBerry on your hip for it to be worth a damn, I'd consider it a serious player. For now, it's seems more like a device for corporate drones and Crackberry slaves (Ari Gold wannabes). And when Google gets Honeycomb straightened out, maybe one of the Android tablets will be in my future. HP is supposedly making good progress with the PALM software... WebOS? Maybe one of those will be decent. But for right now, I'm going to get her the iPad2... and something silky and see thru. That way, everybody wins.
